Steven Wright had a constant feeling of almost falling backwards in his chair, as Lavarnway couldn't figure out how to catch his knuckler. Four passed balls in the first inning. Finally they replaced him. Wright, not Lavarnway. It was 3-0 Houston after one. 5-0 after two. 7-3 after four. But the Astros pulled an Astros, and soon we scored 10 runs in a row, 5 in the 5th, 5 in the 6th. Lavarnway's two-run, two-out double gave us an 8-7 lead. Gomes's pinch-hit, three-run dong essentially put the game away. Ellsbury homered twice and it was a 15-10 win for Boston. Didn't I say they'd score tonight?

Rays lose, so we're 1.5 up. Yanks lose and fall to 10.5 out and 5.5 back of the second wild card.

NESN needs to know that this is unacceptable:



Their stupid text survey stays on the screen for two pitches each time. And it covers home plate. Victorino had a big double during one of these, with the bat-ball contact obscured. My theory is that since at home, with the crappy head-on view, home plate is in the middle of the screen, so this box in the corner doesn't cover it up. But then they go to a road park which has the classic low-and-to-the-side cam, and suddenly home plate is covered. And they don't notice! Is anyone over there actually looking at what they're showing the audience?

And let's talk about Altuve's ball in the 9th. Tapper in front of the plate, he throws his bat into fair territory, ball hits bat, Lavarnway picks up ball and throws Altuve out at first. Now I'll give Remy credit for at least noting the ball hit the bat, and NESN for showing several angles of it, but was this a batter's interference call or not? And shouldn't they have asked this question instead of just saying, "hey, the ball hit the bat"? They just acted like it was a normal 2-3 putout. But you could see the home plate ump put his arms up--I think he was calling dead ball. Then the first base ump did NOT make an out call, he pointed at the home plate ump. I guess the rule is that it's a dead ball and the batter is out, unless it was completely unintentional. The box scores I've looked at just treat it as a normal putout and don't mention any interference. I wonder if they'll realize it later or maybe...I don't know.